Trivia: Although Bob Hoskins first became widely known to American audiences as a detective assigned to investigate a cartoon rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), the balding, burly actor had long been recognized in his native England as a performer of exceptional versatility, capable of playing characters from working-class toughs to Shakespearean villains.Born in Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, on October 26, 1942, where his mother had been sent to get away from the then-raging London Blitz, Hoskins was sent back to London with his mother when he was only two weeks old. Growing up in a solidly working-class family in post-war London, Hoskins stayed in school until he was 15, and he then abandoned formal education in favor of a string of diverse jobs. Over the course of the next ten years, he worked as a Covent Garden porter, member of the Norwegian Merchant Marines, steeplejack, plumber's assistant, banana picker, circus fire-eater, trainee accountant, and even spent time working on a kibbutz in Israel. At the age of 25, having garnered a lifetime's worth of unusual experiences, Hoskins got into acting. Hanging out at a pub one night with a friend who was auditioning for a play, he was asked to read for a part in the production. He got the part, and in the course of performing, was approached by an agent who suggested that Hoskins take up acting professionally and began arranging auditions for him. From there, Hoskins began acting onstage, working throughout the '60s, '70s, and '80s with such theatres as London's Royal Court and National Theatre and as a member of such troupes as The Royal Shakespeare Company.Hoskins made his film debut in 1972 with a minor role in the comedy Up the Front. Three years later he got his first substantial film role in the forgettable Inserts, but in 1980, he made a significant breakthrough, turning in a brilliant portrayal of a successful gangster whose world suddenly begins to fall apart in The Long Good Friday. He found even greater success six years later portraying a gangster-turned-chauffeur assigned to a high-priced call girl in Mona Lisa. His performance earned him Best Actor awards from the British Academy, the Cannes Film Festival, and the New York Film Critics Circle, and a Best Actor Academy Award nomination. For all of the acclaim surrounding his work, it was not until he starred in the aforementioned Who Framed Roger Rabbit? in 1988 that Hoskins became known to a mainstream American audience. His American accent in the film was so convincing, that in addition to earning him a Golden Globe nomination, it led some viewers to assume that he was actually an American actor.Hoskins could subsequently be seen in a number of American films in addition to those he made in Britain, appearing in such features as Mermaids (1990), in which he played Cher's love interest; Heart Condition (1990), in which he played an unhinged racist detective; and Nixon (1995), which featured him as another crazed law enforcement official, J. Edgar Hoover. In 1997, he returned to his roots in Twentyfourseven, earning a European Film Academy Best Actor Award for his portrayal of a man trying to set up an amateur boxing league for working-class young men in economically depressed, Thatcher-era England. Two years later, Hoskins turned in a similarly gripping performance as a caterer with a dangerous secret in Felicia's Journey, a psychological thriller directed by Atom Egoyan.Hoskins continued to work steadily into the beginning of the next decade in a variety of projects including acting opposite Michael Caine in Last Orders and playing a supporting role in the Jennifer Lopez romantic comedy Maid in Manhattan. He continued to appear in an eclectic series of films including Kevin Spacey's Bobby Darin biopic Beyond the Seas, as a very bad guy in the martial-arts film Unleashed, the costume drama Vanity Fair, and earning strong reviews playing opposite an Oscar nominated Judi Dench in Mrs. Henderson Presents. He also lent his very distinctive voice to one of the animated characters in the sequel Gairfield: A Tale of Two Kitties. That same year he portrayed a movie studio chief who may have had something to do with the death of George Reeves in the drama Hollywoodland opposite Ben Affleck, Adrien Brody, and Diane Lane. He appeared in Disney's A Christmas Carol, Made in Dangenham, and 2012's Snow White and the Huntsman. In addition to acting, Hoskins has worked behind the camera in a number of capacities. In 1989, he made his directorial and screenwriting debut with The Raggedy Rawney, a drama about a band of gypsies set during World War II. He also served as an executive producer for The Secret Agent in 1996.In August of 2012 Hoskins announced his retirement from acting in part because he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. He passed away after a bout of pneumonia in 2014, at age 71.

Trivia: One of Hollywood's sexiest and most magnetic leading men, Denzel Washington's poise and radiantly sane intelligence permeate whatever film he is in, be it a socially conscious drama, biopic, or suspense thriller. More importantly, Washington's efforts, alongside those of director Spike Lee, have done much to dramatically expand the range of dramatic roles given to African-American actors and actresses.The son of a Pentecostal minister and a hairdresser, Washington was born in Mount Vernon, NY, on December 28, 1954. His parents' professions shaped Washington's early ambition to launch himself into show business: from his minister father he learned the power of performance, while hours in his mother's salon (listening to stories) gave him a love of storytelling. Unfortunately, when Washington was 14, his folks' marriage took a turn for the worse, and he and his older sister were sent away to boarding school so that they would not be exposed to their parents' eventual divorce. Washington later attended Fordham University, where he attained a B.A. in Journalism in 1977. He still found time to pursue his interest in acting, however, and after graduation he moved to San Francisco, where he won a scholarship to the American Conservatory Theatre. Washington stayed with the ACT for a year, and, after his time there, he began acting in various television movies and made his film debut in the 1981 Carbon Copy. Although he had a starring role (as the illegitimate son of a rich white man), Washington didn't find real recognition until he joined the cast of John Falsey and Joshua Brand's long-running TV series St. Elsewhere in 1982. He won critical raves and audience adoration for his portrayal of Dr. Phillip Chandler, and he began to attract Hollywood notice. In 1987, he starred as anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko in Richard Attenborough's Cry Freedom alongside Kevin Kline, and though the film itself alienated some critics (Pauline Kael called it "dumbfounding"), Washington's powerful performance earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination.Two years later, Washington netted another Best Supporting Actor nod -- and won the award -- for his turn as an embittered yet courageous runaway slave in the Civil War drama Glory. The honor effectively put him on the Hollywood A-List. Some of his more notable work came from his collaboration with director Spike Lee; over the course of the 1990s, Washington starred in three of his films, playing a jazz trumpeter in Mo' Better Blues (1990), the title role in Lee's epic 1992 biopic Malcolm X (for which he received a Best Actor Oscar nomination), and the convict father of a high-school basketball star in He Got Game (1998).Washington also turned in powerful performances in a number of other films, such as Mississippi Masala (1991), as a man in love with an Indian woman; Philadelphia (1993), as a slightly homophobic lawyer who takes on the cause of an AIDS-stricken litigator (Tom Hanks); and Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), as a 1940s private detective, Easy Rawlins. Washington also reeled in large audiences in action roles, with the top box-office draw of such thrillers as The Pelican Brief (1993), Crimson Tide (1995), and The Siege (1998) attesting to his capabilities. In 1999, Washington starred in another thriller, The Bone Collector, playing a paralyzed forensics expert who joins forces with a young policewoman (Angelina Jolie) to track down a serial killer. That same year, he starred in the title role of Norman Jewison's The Hurricane. Based on the true story of a boxer wrongly accused of murdering three people in 1966, the film featured stellar work by Washington as the wronged man, further demonstrating his remarkable capacity for telling a good story. His performance earned him a number of honors, including a Best Actor Golden Globe and a Best Actor Oscar nomination.After another strong performance as a high-school football coach in Boaz Yakin's Remember the Titans, Washington cut dramatically against his "nice guy" typecast to play a corrupt policeman in Training Day, a gritty cop drama helmed by Antoine Fuqua. Washington surprised audiences and critics with his change of direction, but in the eyes of many, this change of direction made him a more compelling screen presence than ever before. (It also netted him an Oscar for Best Actor.) 2002 marked an uneven year for Washington. He joined the cast of Nick Cassavetes' absurd melodrama John Q., as a father so desperate to get medical attention for his ailing son that he holds an entire hospital hostage and contemplates killing himself to donate his own heart to the boy. Critics didn't buy the film; it struck all but the least-discriminating as a desperate attempt by Washington to bring credulity and respectability to a series of ludicrous, manipulative Hollywood contrivances. John Q. nonetheless performed healthily at the box (it grossed over a million dollars worldwide from a 36-million-dollar budget). That same fall, Washington received hearty praise for his directorial and on-camera work in Antwone Fisher (2002), in which he played a concerned naval psychiatrist, and even more so for director Carl Franklin's 2003 crime thriller Out of Time. Somewhat reminiscent of his role in 1991's crime drama Ricochet, Out of Time casts Washington as an upstanding police officer framed for the murder of a prominent citizen. In 2004, Washington teamed up with Jonathan Demme for the first occasion since 1993's Philadelphia, to star in the controversial remake of 1962's The Manchurian Candidate. Washington stars in the picture as soldier Bennett Marco (the role originally performed by Frank Sinatra), who, along with his platoon, is kidnapped and brainwashed during the first Gulf War. Later that year, Washington worked alongside Christopher Walken and Dakota Fanning in another hellraiser, director Tony Scott's Man on Fire, as a bodyguard who carves a bloody swath of vengeance, attempting to rescue a little girl kidnapped under his watch. Washington made no major onscreen appearances in 2005 -- and indeed, kept his activity during 2006 and 2007 to an absolute minimum. In '06, he joined the cast of Spike Lee's thriller Inside Man as a detective assigned to thwart the machinations of a psychotically cunning burglar (Clive Owen). The film opened to spectacular reviews and box-office grosses in March 2006, keeping Washington on top of his game and bringing Lee (whose last major feature was the disappointing 2004 comedy She Hate Me) back to the pinnacle of success. That same year, Washington joined forces once again with Tony Scott in the sci-fi action hybrid Déjà Vu, as an ATF agent on the trail of a terrorist, who discovers a way to "bridge" the present to the past to view the details of a bomb plot that unfolded days earlier. The Scott film garnered a fair number of respectable reviews but ultimately divided critics. Déjà Vu bowed in the U.S. in late November 2006. Meanwhile, Washington signed on for another action thriller, entitled American Gangster -- this time under the aegis of Tony Scott's brother Ridley -- about a drug-dealing Mafioso who smuggles heroin into the U.S. in the corpses of deceased Vietnam veterans.Washington appeared as New York City subway security chief Walter Garber in the 2009 remake of the 1974 thriller The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, and begun filming the post-apocalyptic drama The Book of Eli in the same year. He earned a Best Actor nomination in 2012 for his work as an alcoholic pilot in Robert Zemeckis' drama Flight.

Trivia: A go-getter from an early age, actress Chloe Webb, at 16 years old, attended the Boston Conservatory of Drama and Music. Harnessing her gift for mimicry and satire, Webb helped write several sessions of the popular New York review Forbidden Broadway; she appeared prominently in these irreverent productions, as well as many other major stage presentations on both coasts. Webb's film debut was as self-destructive Nancy Spungen in Sid and Nancy (1988), co-starring with great aplomb as Nancy to Gary Oldman's punk rocker Sid Vicious. Webb has continued to essay offbeat performances in offbeat films like The Belly of an Architect (1987), and has been equally effective in such "normal" efforts as Twins (1988), Ghostbusters 2 (1989) (unbilled as a highly suspect alien-abduction victim), and Heart Condition (1990). After partaking in a small part in 1991's Queens Logic alongside Kevin Bacon and John Malkovich, Webb landed a starring role in the acclaimed television feature Lucky Day. In 1992, the actress participated in Alien 3 and went on to play a major supporting role in A Dangerous Woman with Debra Winger. However, Webb wouldn't be seen in a major film role until the next year, when she played the unlucky-in-love Mona Ramsey in director Alastair Reid's lavishly praised Tales of the City. Webb's work in the later half of the '90s was sparse -- she appeared as a supporting actress in Love Affair with Warren Beatty and Annette Bening in 1994, and wouldn't be seen on the big screen again until the 1998 release of modern Western The Newton Boys.

Trivia: Supporting actor, onscreen from the late '80s.

Trivia: Like his brother Dermot Mulroney, Kieran Mulroney is also an actor. He made his debut in the television movie Bluegrass (1988) and his feature debut the same year in Nowhere to Run. He and his brother appeared together in Career Opportunities (1991). As the '90s progressed, Mulroney primarily played supporting roles.

Trivia: Sexy and talented, with a memorably exotic look (due to a multiethnic ancestry), model-turned-actress Eva La Rue (also occasionally billed by her married name, Eva LaRue Callahan) launched her career in print work, with a heavy emphasis on covers for such periodicals as Woman's World, Latina, and Cosmopolitan en Español. La Rue segued into acting in the late '80s and early '90s, and landed a number of nonfiction television assignments, first as cohost, with the legendary Dom DeLuise, of the gag-laden series revival The New Candid Camera (1991), then as hostess of the Miss America Pageant and the Lifetime network special Weddings of a Lifetime. The ever-versatile La Rue concurrently tackled scripted roles as well. After supporting parts in many a Hollywood programmer (Robocop 3, Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go to College, Mirror Images 2) and several years as a regular on the soap All My Children, she earned stellar notices for her portrayal of Mouseketeer-turned-beach bunny Annette Funicello in the telemovie A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes: The Annette Funicello Story. She went on to perform in recurring roles on the popular series Third Watch and Soul Food. La Rue culled her broadest fan base, however, for her portrayal of lab specialist and grant writer Natalia Boa Vista on the crime series phenomenon CSI: Miami.

Trivia: Supporting actor Alan Rachins is best known for playing the insufferable legal eagle Douglas Brackman Jr. on the long-running drama L.A. Law (1986-1994), but he has also appeared in a few feature films. Born in Boston, Rachins studied at the prestigious Wharton School of Finance until he decided to be an actor in New York. While in the Big Apple, he studied under such acting teachers as William Ball, Kim Stanley, and Harvey Lembeck. Rachins made his professional debut on-stage and for ten years appeared frequently on and off-Broadway before leaving acting in 1972 to study writing and directing at the American Film Institute. From there he became a script reader and then a writer for shows ranging from The Fall Guy to Quincy to Hill Street Blues. He also occasionally directed television episodes. Rachins had his first major feature-film role in Henry Jaglom's Always (1985). Largely due to his work in this film, Rachins and his real-life wife, Joanna Frank, were cast as the Brackmans on L.A. Law. While on the series, Rachins occasionally branched out into television movies. He did not make another feature film until Heart Condition (1990). Since the demise of his series, Rachins continues to occasionally appear in feature films such as Leave It to Beaver (1997). On television, he was seen as a regular on the popular ABC sitcom Dharma and Greg and also continued to appear occasionally in regional theater.

Trivia: Black supporting actress Ja'net DuBois first appeared onscreen in 1970.

Trivia: Though American actress Theresa Randle has only been in films since 1990, she has already worked with some of the biggest names in Hollywood. She made her debut with a small role in Maid to Order (1987) and appeared sporadically in films such as Easy Wheels (1989), but first gained national notice when director Spike Lee cast her as an aspiring actress who works for a phone sex service in Girl 6 (1996). Prior to that, Randle had played small roles in two other Lee films, Jungle Fever (1991) and Malcolm X (1992). Other notable directors with whom she has worked include Robert Townsend and John Landis. In 1996, she starred opposite basketball superstar Michael Jordan and the stars of the old Warner Bros.' cartoons in the b-ball fantasy Space Jam. In 1997, Randle played a major role in the film adaptation of Todd McFarlane's popular comic Spawn (1997).

Trivia: As the sportscaster who called nearly every L.A. Lakers game since the team moved from Minneapolis to Los Angeles in the 1960s, rapid-fire announcer Chick Hearn introduced some of the most colorful and enduring new basketball vernacular of the 20th century. Terms such as "slam dunk" and "air ball" would become so engrained in the terminology of the game that both announcers and fans worldwide would eventually adopt them. Born in Aurora, IL, in November 1916, Hearn would serve a 36-year tenure as the Lakers' only play-by-play announcer, with an amazing unbroken streak covering 3,380 consecutive games. In addition to the honor of being inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, Hearn would also become one of the few sportscasters to earn a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. A graduate of Bradley University, Hearn earned his famous moniker after being handed a box of sneakers with a chicken inside in his early years as a basketball player. After beginning as an announcer at Bradley, Hearn did play-by-play for the Peoria Caterpillars before moving to Los Angeles to work as a football and basketball announcer for the University of Southern California and hosting a popular sports radio program. Hearn was subsequently recruited by the newly relocated Lakers during the 1961 playoffs. Married to his high school sweetheart Marge, the couple parented a daughter who died as a result of anorexia and a son who would die tragically of drug addiction. Hearn would get his start in television as play-by-play announcer of Phillies Jackpot Bowling before making appearances in such popular television series as Gilligan's Island and The Simpsons, and such films as The Love Bug (1968), Fletch (1985), White Men Can't Jump (1992), and Love and Basketball (2000), usually appearing as himself. Three months after having open-heart surgery in December 2001, Hearn broke his hip only to return courtside and finish out the team's championship run. A second fall in early August 2002 however, found Hearn sustaining major head injuries and eventually succumbing shortly thereafter. Hearn was 85.

Trivia: A veteran stuntman who took blows for everyone from John Wayne to Sylvester Stallone, Bobby Bass could be seen getting crashed, smashed, and bashed in some of the most popular Hollywood features ever, including Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Lethal Weapon (1987), and Scarface (1983). A Kentucky native, Bass also served as assistant director on such features as Thelma and Louise (1991), and turned up as an actor in features including Star 80 (1983) and Grosse Point Blank (1997). The stepfather to actress Bo Derek performed dangerous trickery for over 70 films, and received a Stunt Man Award in 1986. On November 7, 2001, Bass died of complications resulting from Parkinson's disease in Los Angeles, CA. He was 65.